Chapter 49: OP Garlic (III)

After he ran for a while, Lil’ Name checked behind before slowing his steps when he saw there was no was following him–Feng Bujue hadn’t pursued him. A few second later, Lil’ Name simply came to a stop and turned around to peer into the distance. He turned in time to see that the distant but still visible Feng Bujue had already overtaken Atobe-sama. There was no fighting between the two; Lil’ Name could only conclude that Atobe-sama was insta-killed.

A few minutes later, the two unexpectedly stood side by side and turned around, facing Lil’ Name’s direction. Atobe-sama even waved an arm at Lil’ Name, appearing to indicate that he was fine.

Not long after, the three of them returned to the street in front of the munitions store. Feng Bujue turned off the stereos and began updating them on the current situation. “So… after a few experiments, I’ve basically discovered a few key things about these Blood Wolf Zombies.

“The opening CG film and exposition have already touched on it a bit, but I’ll still add some of my findings to supplement what was said.

“First of all, they feel extremely unwell when they detect the odor of garlic, they react similarly to how we’d when exposed to tear gas. Raw garlic has the same nauseating effect on them, but chewing it and breathing out the bad breath is immensely more effective.”

“This Big Bro, I wanted to ask earlier, all this blood on your body… aren’t you afraid of becoming infected?” asked Lil’ Name as he looked at the blood on Feng Bujue as well as the two garlands of garlic that had been dyed crimson.

Feng Bujue pointed at his own face; his face was still rather clean. “Just be careful not to let the monster’s bodily fluids splash in your eyes or mouth.” He then pointed at his clothes and continued, “As for all this, ah… it looks like a lot, but it’s not all monster blood actually. When I was emptying some blood bags into the cooler earlier, a lot got on me, that’s all.” After mentioning that, he pulled a fully packed plastic bag from his inventory and placed it on the ground; it was full of garlic. “The two garlands are my last line of defense against bites. Naturally all the garlic for eating is in my inventory. You guys should also both each get a bag and split some. As long as you’re chewing a clove of garlic when you’re fighting, those creatures will basically find it hard to fight back.”

“Yeah… it’ll just be fine if I take one. One bulb can be split into six or seven cloves to chew. Anyway we have another question for you,” responded Lil’ Name.

Atobe-sama very firmly answered, “I don’t need it, thanks.”

“You two don’t look like you like the taste of garlic very much,” he continued in a very heartfelt way, “Do you know, what garlic can do for clear noodle broth is like turning stone into gold.”

“No, we don’t know,” they retorted in unison.

“Hah….” Feng Bujue, with an absolutely vulgar expression, maliciously exhaled a foul breath of air in their faces.

“We’re not even monsters! What are you doing?!”

Immediately, Feng Bujue spoke in a serious tone, “Now, to talk about some of the Blood Wolf Zombie’s traits.”

“You switched a little too quickly….”

“Sunlight makes them sluggish,” Feng Bujue continued his earlier explanation, “They’re slow to the point that it’s like waiting for a magic girl to finish her transformation and for her to finish speaking… oh, no, it’s like waiting until she comes to attack; I could even finish two tongue twisters by then.”

“You (formal) dabble in a lot of things….”

Feng Bujue gestured at the corpses on the street with just a sideways glance. “Although beheading them stops their movements, their head will continue to survive. In my experiments, only by destroying their hindbrain or imploding most of their brain using a gun can I completely kill them.”

As he spoke, he went in his inventory again and fished out a shotgun, giving it a loving gaze. “This Winchester that I found is a weapon with a fairly good effect. At close range, even if you miss the head, blasting other parts will also make a big hole and it’s far more impressive than a pistol.”

“Right, the guns shop!” Atobe-sama’s eyes went wide. “I almost forgot, let’s first plunder some weapons before saying anything else!”

He shouted a greeting at Feng Bujue and then headed into the munitions shop with Lil’ Name, with burning anxiety. These two were the kind of players who were severely lacking in equipment. Up until now they had not even seen one piece of Superior Quality equipment; for them it was already a big breakthrough to be able to upgrade from melee weapons to firearms. It was difficult for others to even imagine someone like Feng Bujue who, at such a low level, carried on him four pieces of Superior Grade equipment, including the one that still was temporarily not equipable set aside in his bag.

Atobe-sama and Lil’ Name rushed into the munitions store but came into a scene of chaos. The shelves on the walls were basically all empty. There were many scattered gun parts in the cabinets and on the floor, and the room inside the door behind the front counter also looked like it had been ransacked.

Feng Bujue followed in behind them, and spoke still in the same easy-going tone, “As far as the Scenario’s setup goes, after the virus outbreak in the city, the weapons shop would’ve definitely been robbed clean. As for the Scenario’s difficulty with respect to weapons, it seems the game wouldn’t give us too much to choose from.”

Atobe-sama seemed not to hear anything Feng Bujue said. His face was filled with excitement as he picked up two pistols–quickly pocketing them into his inventory–another gun, and a TMP, before laughing, “Lucked out this time.”

Lil’ Name tossed a baseball bat and that rusty pipe from his inventory and also picked up and put away two pistols before he shouldering a UMP45 submachine gun. The expression on his face could be described as beaming in joy.

Seeing these two finally obtaining some Ordinary Grade firearms had a sort of beggar-striking-it-rich feeling. Frankly, it was a little bit shameful. Compared to those real professional players, Ice Emperor[1] and his friend, these two can only be said to be non-mainstream false professional players. Their attitude and level of professionalism were still very amateurish.

Only with Feng Bujue’s reminder did the two remember a very crucial point. They awkwardly retrieved their pistols that they’d hurriedly shoved into their inventories, checked the caliber to find the appropriate bullets, and began to pick up some (off the floor).

When the three of them headed back to the street again, another four or five Blood Wolf Zombies had already been attracted over. Feng Bujue proposed they use the few monsters as live target practice for some drill shooting to familiarize themselves with their firearms. The two of them were flustered for a while, and spent forever before they were able to figure out how to shoot the guns. After succeeding in firing a few rounds, they then realized they basically couldn’t hit any target more than ten meters away; they wouldn’t even know where their bullets flew off to. However, after shortening the distance to about five meters, and steading their fire, their success rate became higher.

After finishing up with these monsters, Feng Bujue began speaking again, “Where was I again…oh, right, the next trait…” he paused for a moment to organize his thoughts, “The Blood Wolf Zombies also carry a vampire’s thirst for blood and they’re attracted to the scent of blood. Of course, it has to be normal human blood, uninfected by the virus. As to how… I reckon they use their sense of smell to distinguish.

“The Blood Wolf Zombie’s sense of sense of smell is definitely not as good as a pure werewolf’s, but obviously stronger than that of an ordinary zombie’s. If a living person showed up within a fifty mile radius of them, a Blood Wolf Zombie would be able to find them without relying on their sight. And they can sniff out normal human blood exposed to open air within a distance of a kilometer, furthermore they would even be intensely attracted (to this).”

“No way? There’s scenes of murder all over this city; they can actually distinguish this cooler of human blood that’s been mixed in with all these other scents?” queried Atobe-sama as he gazed at the excessively full cooler of blood.

“That’s very normal, a sign of keen smell is the ability to separate scents. For example, dog breeds like the bloodhound can analyze the compositions of odors on a molecular level,” answered Feng Bujue. “Just like how if you went to sniff at a pile of sh*t, the most you’d know is that it really reeks, but if a keen-nosed creature sniffs it they’d know what the person who sh*t ate yesterday.”

“The only thing I want to know is why you weren’t censored even though you used those kinds of words….” said Atobe-sama.

“This illustrates that under normal circûmstances, the System does not view the word sh*t as a vulgar word, only viewing it as nothing more than a noun.” Feng Bujue continued, “According to my speculations, it is very likely that there’d be some special circûmstances in this game where there’d be no choice but to discuss such topics.” He then said with a darkened expression, “For instance… in some random Scenario, the players might drown to death in….”

Feng Bujue shrugged. He didn’t finish his revolting topic and simply switched subjects, “Since I’ve met up with the two of you, everything will be easier handle now. Right now the time in the Scenario is 2:30pm. You both should set this area as a stronghold and sweep through some monsters. In any case, the guns shop is right beside you. Even if there aren’t many guns left, there’s at least enough ammo.

“I’ll immediately leave to go look for the others and bring them here after I find them.” He raised his head and looked at the sky. “Regardless if I find them or not, I’ll still be back before the sun sets.” He thought of yet another thing, “Oh, right, sound also has the effect of drawing in monsters. After I leave you guys can turn on the stereos again.”

“Hold on.” Lil’ Name asked, “I’ve been meaning to asking from the start, this place….” His line of sight shift onto the things all around: the cooler, the empty blood bags, the stereo, etc…, “How did you come up with this battle arrangement by yourself?”

“The rough course of events was… before coming to guns shop, I first went to a hospital two streets away. At that time I was looking for whether there was any items like medicines and such and in the end accidently discovered the thing about how human blood can attract the monsters. Not long after finishing searching the hospital, I came here and soon after simply decided to make this place my temporary base. Thereupon, I went to a neighboring supermarket, got a shopping cart, and rolled it all the way back to the hospital, once again raiding it. I found the blood bank, broke and forced my way into the cold storage, took several tens of blood bags, loaded the cart, and transported them back here.

Then I moved a cooler from a nearby store and filled the cooler with blood. I brought the stereos out during the lulls between killing monsters for two reasons: one, because the sound attracts monsters, and two, because the frequency of monsters coming wasn’t very high. Sitting and waiting around was seriously a bit boring….”

Feng Bujue said this quickly, “In short, you guys can be at ease sweeping up monsters here. This Scenario is pretty lax with time limits, so we should take advantage of this opportunity to level up our Proficiencies ranks as much as possible and earn a few Skill points.”

He finished his explanation like this, brandished his sleeves, then turned around and just left. He left behind two “professional gamers”, their eyes wide and mouths hanging open. The two could only stand there, dumbstruck, their eyes following the sight of Feng Bujue’s back as it faded into the distance.

Footnotes:

[1]For readers unfamiliar with Prince of Tennis, Keigo Atobe is also known as the Ice Emperor not because of his temperament but because of one of his tennis moves that gives the illusion of being trapped in ice (It’s not a very realistic anime)

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3 thoughts on “[TP] Chapter 49: OP Garlic (III)”

I really do not know who to pity in this scenario…. Feng Bujue’s teammates, or Feng Bujue’s zombie enemies…. I think every time a zombie sees Feng Bujue, its Terror Rating immediately spikes up to Scared Soul-less… but then his teammates won’t know whether they are facing a socio / psycho path themselves either…. 😀